Scotland’s fast-growing Ed Tech consultancy 448 Studio has landed financial support from the Scottish Government to help establish a data centre supporting a new cloud computing platform 448 Cloud.
It is another sign of Scotland’s growing stake in the digital economy in areas such as cyber security, data analytics, software engineering and digital skills development.
448 Studio, based in Renfrewshire but with employees around the world, is enabling knowledge sharing and learning within the education and research community, particularly in the university sector.
The company has received £100,000 to help it further develop the ground-breaking Forumm product which is a fully automated virtual events platform. This lets 448 facilitate multiple, simultaneous events not only in the UK but internationally.
The firm was established four years ago and has enjoyed almost non-stop growth working with both UK and international institutions such as the University of Glasgow, Lancaster University, University of Leeds, LSE, Dundee University, Cornell University and University Technology Sydney. It organises major online events, such as the All Day All Night global education conference. Last year it facilitated the first truly international online conference the Association Montessori Internationale AGM. It saw individuals from more than fifty countries attending. The agency also offers social media workshops and consultancy for the public sector and higher education.
Founder and CEO Dan Marrable said: “We have been working towards this Digital Development Loan from Lanarkshire Enterprise Services in partnership with DSL Business Finance for many, many months. We are hugely excited to be able to take this next step in our growth plan and grateful for the opportunity that it represents.”
448 Studio’s Chief Operating Officer Eric Kim was instrumental in the inception of the Forumm platform and in bringing on board a technical team based around the Globe who have developed the product.
Eric said: “We look upon this investment as a huge vote of confidence in our original vision for bringing people together wherever they are in the world and whatever the circumstances.
“Our current server constraints mean that we are limited to running just one event at a time. This has sometimes meant us turning down potential clients if their events overlap an existing booking.
“Our new data centre will allow us to run a multiplicity of events simultaneously which will increase our capacity greatly, allowing us to fully scale our event platform.
448 Studio’s Finance Director, Ian McDougall, said: “This funding development, aided by Scottish Enterprise, will really help us move the business on to another level in terms of product development and customer delivery, and will no doubt be the first step in funding the growing aspirations of all the team at 448 Studio.”
For more information contact: Phil Taylor – hello@448.studio (44) 07810 860701
